


Kassim

by kheelwithit



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Brainwashing, Conditioning, M/M, Mind Games, Physical Torture, Psychological Torture, Stockholm Syndrome, Torture, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 18:08:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5058694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kheelwithit/pseuds/kheelwithit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pain begets fear begets deference begets obedience begets submission begets loyalty begets perfection.<br/>Kassim will be perfection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kassim

“And well and then--”  
“Yes?”

“Well and then--”  
“Go on.”

“Well and--”  
“Fascinating.”

“Oh do be quiet, Sin! Honestly can’t you tell when someone’s trying to tell you goo-”   
“Can you really not say it, Ja’far? Not only if it’s for a short while?” 

“No! Honestly it was silly for you to even have me try because surely you’ll miss--”  
“I never recall anyone teaching you how to cut off your own sentences so effectively.”

“And I never recall you being so impertinent at goodbyes!”  
“Ha! You said it!” 

Ja’far almost drops his luggage to slug him in the arm, but there are more important things than his temper.

“I will be back, Sin.”  
“I don’t think I could doubt that.”

The ship’s captain calls for the sails to be let out and the northern winds from warm southern seas take Ja’far very far away from his home for a person he’s not exactly eager to meet. It’s a modest beginning at best and it’s too naive and so, as such, beyond him to believe that this will get any better. 

The things he does for Sinbad. Or, he thinks, in a similar vein, the things Sinbad does for Alibaba. There is something to be said about Sinbad’s own vanities or insecurities that the boy is nearly exactly as he was when he was young.

 

Chief's familiar with Balbadd’s grand palace, but he has never been into the infirmaries, which he likes to believe is the mark of many careful and altogether successful previous visits. He thinks he shall not count this one, as nobody is to know about it all anyways and sets his meagre personal belongings (not even his, really; they’re for the boy when he comes to) by the lone, spartan wooden chair in this high ceilinged empty room that his coworker left him and bless her, she does know exactly what will be comfortable for him. There is a thought that he should like her quiet, tranquil company for these months he will be here, but she will likely be back home, by now, hating being away from her own laboratories as she does, so it slides quickly.   
Besides, the work and conditioning that he will be exercising shan’t make him good or even decently frequent company.   
There is not much to inspect here, for routine safety. No windows, drawers or loose bricks in the tall walls, nor crooked floorboard, carpet or anything unexpected behind the curtain that separates the room in half, though it is quite eerie.

To be expected, Chief thinks, when you’re bringing the dead to life. 

The tank in the center is large and one that Chief recognizes as his co worker’s make and he rests nearly assured that it’s not been sabotaged and the shield protecting it from tampering is Yamuraiha own, so Chief gives it a healthy distance and stares for a while, at his new, only mostly dead charge inside it. Perhaps there is something drawing him up inside of the tank? He rather hopes so because Kassim looks like a fish gone belly up, his peculiar hair a halo around his slack face.

Chief settles in and waits in the empty room with the curtain. 

 

The only times he leaves in the room are to fetch more to eat, and even these are as brief and far between as he can make them with the purchase of long lasting tack biscuits and jugs of carefully rationed water. Other than that, Chief stays in this room for many a day, which turns to many a week very soon.

He exercises, he plans, he occasionally signs paperwork sent to him via courier pigeon, he contemplates and he stares at Kassim. 

His body is a perfect recreation. Chief has considered getting closer to see if there could even be the slightest hint of stubble on the delicate, entirely too snappable column of his neck to indicate growth, age, but there is none to be found. This is an entirely new body recreated only from the memory of Alibaba and he has to admit to its remarkability.   
Yamuraiha may have made it, but the accuracy, from the way his hair is twisted only to the left to the nicks on the back of his hand, is due to Alibaba’s memory. His uncannily detailed memory.

Chief begins to suspect in his hours in the dark. And the suspicion leads to more plans, which leads to more staring which births more suspicion. It’s a useful cycle, at least.

 

There is an incident that catches Chief unexpecting, but not unalert. It’s been heavily ingrained in him for years now that black rukh, no matter whom it may come from, is bad news, but he doesn’t know what it means when it doesn’t come from anyone at all. Black butterflies gather so heavily that they’re visible to him, who should be blind to their existence and they pass through Yamuraiha’s shield, unaffected by strong magics because they are the element that it cannot be without and Chief can only draw Balalark Sei and prepare to find out exactly what that shield will do if he tries to run through it. Something in the air warns against jumping to conclusions, though, and because this is not something utterly unriskable, Chief swings his heavy weighted daggers, red wires whorling nigh soundlessly and watches, for now. What happens next should not happen, but the black rukh tends to do that anyways, so it figures, doesn’t it? It seeps into Kassim like water in the ground after rain. It fills him bit by bit and he swallows it like a black hole even after it makes something like smoke curl in tendrils from his body on the inside of a tank. It’s a little like looking at an inkstain in the sea. 

Days pass, not weeks this time. Chief doesn’t leave even for food and he never takes his eyes off of Kassim.   
It’s almost time, he thinks. 

 

Chief is getting ready. He thought there may have been an inset of panic when the body in the, for all intents and purposes, pickling tank, moved, Maybe a scramble to reassess his teaching schedules, maybe last minute insecurities or regrets, but there are none.  
There’s a cold indifference that he hasn’t had to wear this much, this deeply for a while, which comes in when he begins uncoiling trip wires and reaching for darts. 

When there is nothing left to do, Chief pads to the corner to sharpen his blades and hide his face and is pleased that it takes so little time to prepare. 

 

Pain begets fear begets deference begets obedience begets submission begets loyalty begets perfection. 

 

Chief makes sure that Kassim wakes up to pain. 

The shield falls around the tank and, even though he was never told, Chief can tell it’s time, that he’s awake. He hauls the chair from the corner to the edge of the tank and hops on it, tranquil as can be. He could have pulled up his sleeves before plunging his arms into this gel like liquid that keeps his new charge suspended, but that would be too neat. This has got to be messy pain, much as Chief is opposed to it. Something graphic, something unforgettable is essential to start this off because such a person as his charge is too strong minded to be coaxed into submission. A metaphorical blunt weapon of torture should sufficiently stun him for the proceeds.   
Chief will be merciful, of course. And let it never be said, he thinks, that I was not merciful. There will be no phobias, there will be no inabilities, not like his own time. Kassim will not have to wrestle a fear of blades, nor will he have to contest with fears of abandonment in the dark for the first months. 

Kassim will be afraid of one thing only and it will, very specifically, be him. 

His body is not too weak to struggle, Chief is prepared, though. He has done this before, both Ma’had and Vittel and this boy is smaller than them both and he is larger than he was when he was younger. He makes sure that Kassim doesn’t knock himself back out a good few times while he herds him, a panicked animal in a room with a wise shepherd, right where he wants him. The corner. And there, in the dim teal light of the empty medical room in the far recesses of the unused palace of Balbadd, Kassim, a dead man walking, looks upon the face of his jailer, his judge, his teacher and god for the first time. 

And when Chief is satisfied that Kassim has seen him enough through wide brown eyes, the bandages over his face and through his white hair, the ragged, bloodstained cloak and knives in his hands, he renders him unconscious. 

 

Waking up the second time is pathetically and easily discernable, but Chief is willing to give a short kudos to keeping his wits about him enough to do even this much, even though he shouldn’t. In his corner, Chief rolls his shoulders and takes his time, which is always the first rule of a successful torture session. 

“I see you’re up.” His voice isn’t suited to this anymore, is it? Chief uses a voice that stays raspy from either too much shouting or too little use. This voice is Ja’far’s, smooth and too tempered. There is also no cursing.

He draws himself up with a fake, tired swagger and grabs the bucket of water. Kassim is tied to a chair, a useful bit of preparation because a good brainwasher is never caught unprepared.   
Chief walks around him once or twice, makes sure the leather straps on the newly renovated chair have his hands in a firm grip, that the rope around his ankles isn’t fraying. His head isn’t pulled back at exactly ten degrees, which is rectified to a firm twenty with the rope tied to his hair on one end and a d-ring on the floor on the other.

“Fucking rule one. You’re awake, you report.” And but now that cursing doesn’t feel right.   
“To who? Who are you?”  
“If you can’t ask the right questions, you shouldn’t speak.” He punctuates it with a spare bandage tied around his face.

The first round of waterboarding begins.   
Chief lets the first bucket of water down over his face and the sound of his rushed, panicked breathing stops, favoring the sound of the chair jerking against tile hard as he struggles, knees knocking and his fists balling tight before clutching at the arms weakly. Behind the cloth, Chief can see something yellowish, bile, possibly, he thinks, rising up before it falls because he’s swallowed it unwillingly.   
He stops. Unties the cloth and strokes the boys face out of some misplaced pity for the boy, remembering the time he was like this, the time he held Vittel just like this--

“What question should you be asking?”  
“Why, god why?”  
“Well now, at least you know who I am.”  
The cloth is retied and round two begins. 

“What question?”   
“When will it be done, please, please.” There are tears and snot, indistinguishable, nearly, from the water on his face.   
“Wrong. Asking when pain will be over is as much a torture as anything. Accept it.”

Round three begins.  
“What question?” Kassim only sobs, his body slack from exhaustion of the struggle he’s been putting up. Chief leaves to refill his bucket. When he comes back, Kassim can only look at him in fear, helpless and the smell of piss is rancid in the air as he begins round four. 

“What question?”   
“What! What do I need to do so you’ll fucking sto-stop.”  
“What do you think I want?” There’s silence and Kassim’s eyes are wide while he struggles to think of what this captive bay country may have to offer Chief, who he knows nothing about. There’s a fancy that niggles at him and he runs with it, disregarding the danger-- he can blame it on his disguise.  
“What if I told you I wanted to know where the Prince is?” Kassim spits in his face, bile and seawater and snot land smack on the corner of his eye. Chief is so amused that the insult falls flat, but he makes round five more vicious as punishment on the principle of the matter.  
“Sometimes, pain exists just because it’s pain. Accept it.”

Kassim struggles as hard as he did before. Chief doesn’t ask ‘what question’ anymore because the point is that there is no question, isn’t it?

The last round doesn’t end until both of his arms suffer fractures from the struggles and his shoulder is dislocated from holding him down in the struggle. There’s nothing left of the water reserve and it smells like piss and shit and swallowed vomit. 

It’s a very productive day.


End file.
